These 12 short stories first appeared in The Strand magazine and were published in book form in 1892. Sherlock Holmes had made his debut five years earlier in A Study in Scarlet, but it was this collection—including "The Red-Headed League"; "The Engineer's Thumb"; and "The Blue Carbuncle"—that established him as a detective nonpareil, and Arthur Conan Doyle as one of the most popular writers of his day. Like the other titles in this series of affordable classics, this book has been reset in fresh type. It includes a frontispiece illustration and a brief biography of the author.